Some transportation services may provide transportation on demand, drawing from a transportation supply pool to meet the needs of those requesting transportation as the needs arise. However, fulfilling requests by arbitrarily matching available transportation supply units with pending transportation requests may result in wasted transportation supply resources, inefficient transportation routes, or other suboptimal results. For example, a transportation service may fulfill multiple transportation requests with the same transportation supply unit by identifying a transportation route with overlap between the transportation needs of the multiple transportation requests, thereby potentially achieving greater transportation efficiency. Furthermore, by leaving transportation requests pending for longer periods of time, a transportation service may be able to identify more advantageous overlaps to exploit. However, the performance of an on-demand transportation service may also depend on prompt fulfillment of transportation requests. Accordingly, decisions about when and how to fulfill transportation requests may pose costly trade-offs for on-demand transportation services and consumers of on-demand transportation services.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference characters and descriptions indicate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements. While the exemplary embodiments described herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail herein. However, the exemplary embodiments described herein are not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the instant disclosure covers all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope of the appended claims.